A video of the lulling Venetian lagoon provides visitors who step into the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with a peaceful moment of quiet, meditation and transcendence. In front of the video a group of luminous swans strengthens the impression this is an oasis of calm and tranquillity in a world in turmoil. Yet there are many symbolisms behind this immersive space, entitled "Swan Song Now", by Jana Želibská.
Born 1941 in Olomouc, Želibská, studied at the Academy of Fine Art and Design in Bratislava (where she currently lives and works), graduating in graphics and book illustration in the mid-'60s.
As the years passed, she started experimenting with other mediums and movements such as Nouveau Réalisme and Pop Art, switching from paintings and prints to designing immersive environments, such as her first one, "The Possibility of Exposure" (1967), using mixed media and non-art materials and therefore coming to represent a new generation of progressive artists in Czechoslovakia.
The influence of Nouveau Réalisme with its use of non-art materials can be felt here in Venice as well: on the door of the pavilion there is indeed a plexiglass box preserving a ball of nautical blue rope with random wooden and plastic pieces thrown in.
Inside the pavilion the swans sit on islets of debris, symbolising the human yearning for constancy, but also a tension between the industrial and the poetical, the dichotomy between relaxing moments and the tensions generated by the relentless rhythms of the world and the juxtaposition of sexes in the images of a child/woman on a wall and in the swans representing freedom, beauty, love, purity and the symbiosis of antitheses as they reunite both the sexes and generate gender confusion.
Though the installation also hints at ecological disaster, there are still hope and beauty in this space, elements inspired by the Pop Art-like swans covered in LED lights.
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